Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren It’s a universally accepted fact of the pandemic era: Zoom is superior to Webex. At least, that’s the widely-held belief by White House staffers. After working remotely through the presidential transition and the first few months of President JOE BIDEN’s administration, many had grown accustomed to conducting a lot of their work over Zoom. (Google Hangouts was the preferred method of communication during the campaign.) So when AUSTIN LIN, director of technology, sent a staff-wide email on Jan. 30 informing everyone the White House would be switching from Zoom to Webex, it did not go over well. “People were like, ‘What is happening?’” said a White House aide. “People would roll their eyes and groan about it.” In the email, Lin said that while Webex would be “eventually replacing Zoom” as the White House’s “primary video conferencing solution,” he reassured staff that “not much” would change. Many of the same features that people liked — virtual backgrounds, for example — would be available on Webex, he said. Lin even included a three-page, step-by-step guide on how to use Webex. Lin told staff that the switch would not be immediate. They had until May 1 before their Zoom Pro accounts would be deactivated and, even then, they would still be able to join Zoom meetings hosted by others in the administration or outside organizations. But despite his best efforts to make the transition as seamless as possible, the complaints continued. “No explanation was given [for the change],” complained one former White House official. After the switch was finally made, the sadness and dread turned to full on bemoaning. “Webex just sucks,” said another current White House aide. “But then again, the government isn’t really known for being on the cutting edge of IT.” Other staffers also grumbled about how Webex is not nearly as user-friendly as Zoom. The app can be glitchy, they said, and the meeting interface is more challenging to navigate for less tech-savvy administration officials. A spokesperson for Cisco, Webex’s parent company, did not respond to a request for comment before publication. Although the White House is back to working in person, staffers said that a lot of meetings are still conducted virtually. Some staffers said they refused to transition to Webex and have kept using the free version of Zoom, which doesn’t allow meetings to go over 40 minutes. “It has definitely kept meetings efficient,” said a third current White House aide. When asked why the White House changed to Webex, an official said that it was a cost-related decision and did not have to do with security factors or compliance with public records laws. Each federal agency decides which conference tool it wants to use for official business. When asked for their thoughts on White House staffers’ frustrations with Webex, one administration staffer who works at an agency said: “it could always be worse.” “They should just be glad they aren’t us,” the person said, noting that they had to hop off the phone with West Wing Playbook to join a, shudder, Microsoft Teams meeting. MESSAGE US — Are you Zoom CEO ERIC YUAN? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
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